The present invention relates to a kneaded food molding apparatus of the rotary type for automatically and continuously molding kneaded food such as croquettes or hamburgers.
Kneaded food such as croquettes or hamburgers may be charged to molds and then molded. When removing such food from the molds, the foods partially sticks to an extruding means so that the molded food as removed from the molds disadvantageously lacks a portion thereof.
In order to resolve such inconvenience, co-pending patent application U.S. Ser. No. 482,717, now abandoned, disclosed a method and apparatus of extruding kneaded food comprising a cylindrical hollow mold member, an intermediate cylindrical member engaged with the hollow mold member at its hollow portion and having in the inner surface longitudinal grooves extending from the top to the vicinity of the lower end of an intermediate cylindrical member, and an actuating shaft member.
According to the molding means of this invention above-mentioned, the intermediate hollow member is inserted into the hollow mold member, and the actuating shaft member is inserted into the intermediate hollow member. The actuating shaft member and the intermediate cylindrical member inserted into the hollow mold member, are lifted up to form a molding space for kneaded food in the hollow mold member. Such molding space is charged with kneaded food. The intermediate cylindrical member and the actuating shaft member are then lowered to extrude the molded food from the hollow mold member. The actuating shaft member is lifted up from the intermediate cylindrical member to a position slightly lower than the lower ends of the longitudinal grooves, thereby to form a vacuum portion. The actuating shaft member is further lifted up such that air is sucked to the vacuum portion through the longitudinal grooves. The actuating shaft member which has been lifted up, is then lowered to compress the sucked air, so that the molded food sticking to the lower surface of the intermediate cylindrical member is disengaged by the compressed air pressure.
According to the invention in the application above-mentioned, the molding means is attached to a mold plate for molding kneaded food. That is, the mold plate has one hole to which the molding means discussed hereinbefore is attached. By an actuating mechanism, this mold plate is horizontally reciprocated for molding kneaded food such as hamburgers or croquettes. However, one reciprocal movement of the mold plate provides only one molded product. This disadvantageously presents a low productivity.
It is therefore proposed to form in the mold plate a plurality of holes to which a plurality of molding means are attached, thus improving the productivity. In such a case, however, a large-size mold plate has to be used according to the number of the holes. In addition, the arrangement of reciprocating movement requires a further large space as compared with the mold plate having one hole.
Moreover, where a plurality of holes are formed, a plurality of kneaded food supply ports are required; otherwise, the productivity cannot be improved as compared with the mold plate having one hole to which one molding means is attached. Accordingly, at least one additional kneaded food supply port is therefore required and thus additional kneaded food supply devices are required.